


Kodachromance

by voicedimplosives



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff and Smut, I Blame Tumblr, I Don't Even Know, I Tried, I think?, Light-Hearted, Non-Graphic Smut, Silly, i'm going with E to be safe, love via competition, reyloweek2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 06:29:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14396274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voicedimplosives/pseuds/voicedimplosives
Summary: Sketches of a love affair in five hues.





	Kodachromance

**Author's Note:**

> (alternate title: hi, i wanted to do one of those 5times fics, except then i was bad at it and this happened instead)
> 
> come find me on [tumblr](https://voicedimplosives.tumblr.com/), if you'd like?

**I Just Can't Cope-acabana**

  
Rey isn’t one for failure, or not getting her way.

 

So when the professor of her course, _Reading Fiction: Short Story Masterpieces_ , hands her back her final paper, and it’s got a big red C inked into the corner, she’s not a happy camper.

 

 _What am I even doing here?_ she wants to scream at the man, a walking mid-life crisis who wears tweed jackets with elbow patches and asked them back in September to call him ‘Hugh’. _I’m a mecheng major! I’ll be building robots for Tesla some day! Why even have a humanities requirement at fucking MIT, of all places? And why put ‘short story’ in the course name like a liar when you know damn well you’re going to make us read approximately one million pages of supplementary material?_

 

“Have a nice holiday,” is what she actually mutters, under her breath, as she shuffles dejectedly out of the classroom.

 

She stomps back to her residence hall, where a long, lonely winter vacation waits for her. Everyone she knows except Finn is going home, and Finn isn’t exactly sticking around: he’s traveling with Poe down to New York to finally be introduced to Poe’s family as The Boyfriend.

 

So. It’s just Rey, the incessant snow, her microwave, her sad collection of Ramen noodle packets, and this big damn C.

 

There’s one very clear solution to all these problems piling up like nor'easter snow around her, and Rey knows just where to find it: at the bottom of a pint glass down at her local dive bar.

 

It’s not that drinking is _always_ the answer, or even that it’s _ever_ the answer. But Rey just turned twenty-one a few weeks ago which means she’s finally legal, _again_ —she’d been able to drink for her entire last year of secondary school, back in Dungeness. Plus, this bar does one dollar Guinness pints on Wednesday afternoons, she’s officially on winter break, and while it’s not the _best_ answer—it certainly isn’t the _worst_.

 

This theory is confirmed when a dark and mysterious redwood of a man walks in and chooses the stool directly next to hers, despite the two of them constituting exactly half of the grody, desolate bar’s patronage.

 

“Really?” she asks.

 

“I like your nails,” he parries, sipping at his drink. “Very yellow. Very bright.”

 

She swings herself around until her knees bang against the side of his thick, jean-covered thigh and then she rubs her tits against his corded forearm for good measure, because she’s feeling just a little bit shameless. “You can do better than that,” she ripostes.

 

“I can,” he says, placing one hand on the bar and the other on the low back of her stool. He leans in close, whiskey breath fanning across her face. It should be unappealing, but it's not. “But not in here. Unless you were looking to give those two—” he jerks his head in the direction of the geriatric men playing a game of darts in the back, “—a heart attack.”

 

“See?” She downs her beer. “ _Told_ you you could do better.”

 

 _Turns out there is a cure for the Lit Class blues_ , Rey muses, as she gags on Ben’s hard, heavy cock, back in her dorm room. And later, when she’s bouncing on it, her fingers buried in his thick dark hair and the ridiculous man growling obscenely hot compliments as he nuzzles her breasts, she acknowledges something else:

 

If she can’t have an A, at least she can console herself with the D.

 

 

**Don't Take Yosemite for Granite**

  
Come January, classes reconvene, and Rey decides she needs an outlet for all this nervy energy she’s got bottled up inside her.

 

This decision may not be entirely her own volition so much as it is a result of Poe and Finn cornering her and guilting her into taking up a hobby because they’re tired of her dismantling the toaster when she’s had a bad day.

 

Back in Dungeness, Rey fenced competitively for her school, which certainly didn’t win her popularity points, but it did wonders for her gluteal muscles (all that lunging). She signs up for a class, figuring she can sacrifice an hour of her life per week if it helps her to chill the fuck out.

 

Rey’s a damn fine sabreuse, despite her slight build, and she shows up to the class with her own sabre, chest protector, sous-plastron, breeches, gloves and jacket. Hell, she even lugged her giant mask all the way across the Atlantic, although she hasn’t used any of this stuff in three years. But maybe teenager Rey knew that uni Rey would reach her boiling point with academia halfway through her junior year, and come crawling back to the blade.

 

In any case, she’s kitted out and ready to spar. Then she’s paired with a masked giant of a man.

 

“There isn’t anyone normal-human sized?” she asks the instructor, who shrugs indifferently. He’s obviously a grad student doing this on the side, and he seems about as invested in technique and pairing as you’d expect. Looking around the room, most of these amateurs aren’t even wearing the proper clothing, or protective equipment. There isn’t a referee in sight.

 

Well, you pay twenty bucks for a semester’s worth of fencing sessions—you get what you pay for.

 

“Afraid you can’t beat me?” asks her opponent, and his rumbling voice is deep, pretty sexy actually—

 

Oh wait, she knows that voice. It’s muffled by the metal mesh of his mask, but she still knows it.

 

Winter break guy. Ben. She hasn’t seen him since their little rendezvous on the last day of classes, had been too groggy with sleep to ask for his number when he rolled out of her bed early the next morning claiming he had to get to work. Half remembers the feel of his hot, hard body curled around hers, clinging to her in a desperate bid not to fall out of her tiny single bed.

 

Okay, she fully remembers that now. Shit.

 

“En garde,” he drawls, helmeted head cocked, as he stomps his huge foot to the ground in a very impressive display of Appel. _At least he knows what he’s doing_ , Rey thinks, inspecting his unwrinkled jacket and fancy gloves.

 

She holds her sabre aloft, ready to own this fool.

 

The first point goes to Ben, but only because he uses the flèche, an illegal move wherein he crosses his feet while inching towards her, then lunges forward using the momentum of his twisted legs.

 

It sounds complicated, but really it just means he _cheated_ , which she tells him in no uncertain terms. He shrugs, then assumes the starting position and waits for her to get over it.

 

So she beats his cheating ass anyway, taking the next eight points until finally, panting, his raises his hands.

 

“Alright alright, you _win_ , you little gremlin.” He pulls off his mask, then his gloves. He’s a bit sweaty, but otherwise his hair is basically unruffled, and that just doesn’t seem fair to Rey. She knows her own hair, pulled into its customary three buns at the back of her scalp, is probably a sodden, wilted mess.

 

His ears stick out though, and when he smiles she can see that his teeth aren’t Hollywood perfect. So at least she has that.

 

“C’mon sweetheart, let me see who whooped my ass.”

 

She could, and it would be fun to gloat, but Rey has this warning alarm buzzing in her ear, telling her she's thoroughly enjoyed both experiences she’s had with this guy. That probably spells trouble, and heartbreak, so maybe she’d better just get out while the getting’s good.

 

Still, she’s a good sportswoman. So she tears off her right glove, and silently extends her hand towards his for a shake. Ben narrows his eyes when he notices the color—she’s rocking a shiny dark chrome this week—and takes her hand in his.

 

Bit sweaty, but _Lord_ his grip is firm. He pulls her closer, ducking his head so he can peer inside her mask.

 

“I can _see_ you, Rey,” he says, right before total awkward panic kicks in and she yanks her hand back, spins on her heel, and marches out into the frigid Cambridge evening. Still dressed in full fencing attire, of course, which she wears for the duration of the long walk home in order to achieve maximum humiliation.

 

 

**She’s a Bad Muffuletta!**

  
She’s got one more humanities rec she has to get through if she’s going to be allowed to walk away from MIT with a shiny Mechanical Engineering degree. So after careful consultation with Finn, who’s majoring in Aeronautics but getting his minor in Anthro, she decides on _Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies_ , which he promises will be an easy A.

 

The lecture is fine, the professor a wry older guy who asks them to call him ‘Luke’. And then, two days later, she shows up for discussion group, and who should walk into the cramped, overheated classroom but one “I’m a hottie and a fencer and a really good lay” Ben—something. Rey glances at her syllabus when she sees him, in part to avoid meeting his eyes and in part because she realizes she has no idea what his surname is.

 

Solo. It’s Solo. What kind of a stupid, good-smelling, broad-chested, excellent-dick-having name is that?

 

 _Rey Solo_ , she thinks. _Shut up Rey_ , she thinks.

 

She spends the next hour and a half staring at her nails, painted an obnoxiously bright pink to try and stave off the winter doldrums. After Ben gives them some reading assignment and tells them they can take off, Rey does her damnedest not to be the last one through the door.

 

It doesn’t matter though, because Ben calls out, “Miss Jakku, could you hang back a second?”

 

_Busted._

 

“Rey,” he says, when everyone else has filed out and he’s closed the door behind them. His eyes are this magnificent toasted brown, like the color of fancy coffee or an aged whiskey, and he’s grinning at her boyishly.

 

“Fencing, huh?” he asks.

 

“ _Really?_ ” Rey explodes, backing away from him. She starts to pace in front of his desk, so he leans against it and stretches out his long legs, watching her.

 

“ _That’s_ what you want to talk about? This is insane,” she growls. “Is this even legal? Are you going to be arrested? _Am I?_ ”

 

“Not unless you’re a kid genius and therefore still somehow under eighteen,” Ben answers, chuckling. He reaches out to her when she makes her next pass. Just his massive paw of a hand, gently resting against her elbow, is enough to make Rey’s face go up in flames. “Hey, look, it’s fine. What we did was a little unethical, but we didn’t know at the time we were doing it. I’ll talk to my advisor, tell him I can’t TA for this group. Luke’ll get over it. Okay?”

 

“What?” Rey’s sweating, actual drops of nervous sweat are now running down her face. “I can’t make you do that, that’s—this is your livelihood. I don’t even care about this class, I just need another humanities course to graduate and I’m only three semesters away and now I’m getting you fired and no one’s ever going to let me build robots and—”

 

She takes a deep breath, fully expecting to continue ranting, except what happens instead is that she starts to cry.

 

“Whoa,” Ben grunts, before pulling her into his thick arms. “Easy. Deep breaths.”

 

She sinks into the hug, her hands clenching at the wool sweater he’s wearing. He smells like aftershave, something woodsy, and coffee, and maybe a faint trace of cigarette smoke, and—this is _not_ helping.

 

“I can’t make you drop this group,” she hiccups.

 

He snorts. “I’m not making you drop the class, either.”

 

“So?” She’s looking up at him, her eyes tracing a trail across the constellations of beauty marks on his cheeks. His features are so unconventional—everything is oversized on his face, and it shouldn’t work, but it totally does and it’s doing things to her. He still hasn’t let her go.

 

“I’ll move you to a different discussion group, on one condition.”

 

“That being?” She hasn’t made any effort to move away from him, and when he spreads his legs, she slots herself between his firm thighs.

 

“You consider going on a date with me, three months from now,” he murmurs, that stupid boyish grin sneaking back onto his stupid handsome face. “And you give me your phone number, to tide me over.”

 

 

**I Am What I Amethyst**

  
It’s the middle of a sweltering July, and they’re hanging out in the air-conditioned environs of a very cute hipster bar, the kind that has a shelf stocked with board games in one corner.

 

Rey’s sipping at a gin and tonic, Ben’s nursing a glass of white wine, and they’re engaged in a battle of wits—his fancy Archaeometry doctorate and all of its arcane vocabulary versus her extensive knowledge of robotic engineering jargon. The game is Scrabble, and the stakes are high—Rey’s made something of a habit at being better than Ben at things, and she’s not about to have her crown taken from her now.

 

“Seriously no acronyms?” she asks, for the hundredth time.

 

Ben smirks. “Nope,” he says, popping the ‘p’. He’s enjoying this—it’s been her turn for about five minutes, and Rey has got _nothing_.

 

SAGBIML.

 

Wait a minute. The clouds part, and Rey sees it. “Eureka!” she shrieks, alarming the couple sitting next to them who are attempting to have a nice quiet date.

 

“G-I-M-B-A-L-S.”

 

“What the _hell_ is that?” His brow is furrowed as he stares at the word like it has personally offended him.

 

“It’s a pivot point for a gyroscope,” she croons, tallying her score. She’s landed on a double-letter square and a double-word square, plus the bonus fifty points—Rey is _crushing_ it.

 

“Oh come on,” he says, slumping in his chair. “Another robotics word? It’s like you’ve got a secret superpower you’re using against me. I regret everything.”

 

“Yeah, okay, _geodetic_ ,” Rey snarks, pointing at the word he managed to play off of her ‘E’, the use of all seven tiles also giving him a bonus fifty points. “I’m just trying desperately to keep up here.”

 

“False. I only have ten points on you now,” he counters, knocking his sneakered foot against her bare calf.

 

She shrugs, offering him a blasé grin and knocking back the last of her gin and tonic. “What can I say? Anything you can do I can do better, Solo.”

 

“You feel sure about that? Want to make it interesting?” He takes her hand in his, making it look tiny and delicate, and kisses her knuckles before running his thumb over her matte lilac-lacquered fingernails.

 

 _Oh, brother._ He’s asked her this twice before, once during a game a strip poker and once during an impromptu pancake-making contest. _(Poe was the judge, obviously she won.)_ Both occasions led to some very long, sleepless nights with Ben’s face buried in her snatch; even the memory of how many times and how hard she came has her squeezing her bare thighs together underneath her flowing jersey skirt. Technically she needs to be up bright and early tomorrow so she can get to the robotics summer camp she’s running down in Brookline, but—

 

Like he’s read her mind, he grins reassuringly. “I’ll wake you up in the morning. Promise.”

 

She returns his grin with wink. “The usual wager, Mr. Solo?”

 

“Of course, Miss Jakku.”

 

She wins that night, in every conceivable way—and Ben still manages to get her to the camp on time.

 

 

**Teal the Cows Come Home**

  
The shimmery blue-green polish on her thumbnail looks really good against the pale skin on the joint of his thumb—striking. She lifts her thumb to press against his. She’s ready for battle.

 

“One, two, three, four,” he chants, in time with her. “I declare a thumb war.”

 

She doesn’t really stand a chance. It’s not fair. Ben’s a big boy, he’s got the thumbs to match, and in the war of thumbs—size _does_ matter.

 

When he’s got her thumb pressed against the fleshy side of her pointer finger, he smirks at her.

 

“Give up yet?”

 

Rey rolls her eyes at him, pouting. He leans over to kiss her on the forehead before easing out of their bed and padding off to the bathroom. She admires his backside as he goes, made decent only by a tight pair of black briefs but otherwise showing off his sculpted back and broad shoulders. He disappears for a moment, and returns with a toothbrush jutting from his mouth.

 

Through the window of their bedroom, the late-summer shrieks of kids running through the streets bounce off the brick buildings, making them sound like a minor stampede. Classes start up again tomorrow—both for the kids, and for MIT undergrads. Her last year of uni, and her first year of living with Ben. An interesting juxtaposition, to be sure.

 

His eyes are on her, soft and affectionate, while he brushes. He disappears again to rinse out his mouth, then crawls back into bed with her. “Hey.”

 

“Hmmph,” she says.

 

“Oh come _on_ Rey, you can’t be mad. It was bound to happen eventually—I knew I had to be better than you at _something_.”

 

“It’s biologically discriminatory,” she fumes. “I learned all about it in my Women’s Studies class. If I had your freakishly large thumbs—”

 

“I seem to recall you appreciating my thumbs,” he murmurs, lowering his lips to hers as his hand sneaks into her underwear, palming her and strumming at her clit.

 

“Y’know, I’m not sure I remember...” she fibs. “Remind me why?”

 

“Happily.”


End file.
